The continued protest by ex-servicemen against the Pay panel’s recommendations have started to irk the government with Minister of State for Defence M M Pallam Raju coming on record to say that “it is unbecoming” of former soldiers to take to the streets to press for better salaries.Sources say the Minister’s public rebuttal has a background. The ex-servicemen’s sustained dissent has displeased many top officials as armed forces do not have a tradition of going public with their grievances. Sources said that even the PMO has taken exception to this with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh discussing the issue with Defence Minister A K Antony during the last two weeks.The tipping point, sources said, came after Tuesday’s unprecedented hunger strike across the country. “It is unbecoming on the part of dignified ex-servicemen (to launch such protests). I don’t think they should be doing this.It is uncalled for,” said Pallam Raju, speaking at the sidelines of a CII-sponsored defence seminar in the capital.The government’s argument is that the intensity of the protests is uncalled for as a redressal mechanism has already been put into place and a revised pay structure has not yet been finalized.Also, the protests continue even after Cabinet Secretary K M Chandrashekhar told Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor last week that the issue is being resolved by the Committee of Secretaries (CoS) and protests and noises of dissent within the armed forces would not help matters. The Army Chief is learnt to have distanced himself from the protests by ex-servicemen.On May 17, during a presentation by pay cells of all three services to the CoS, some members of the committee took exception to some presentations that “ran down” other uniformed services including the paramilitary and the Indian Police Service.What further complicated matters was a letter by Navy Chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta to the Defence Minister on the pay panel, written four days after the presentation, that did not strike the right note with the CoS. The letter raised two points: one, that nothing was being done on the pay review after a meeting with the Defence Minister and, two, there was no representation of the armed forces on the pay review panel.The CoS took exception to the letter pointing out that the pay cells did make presentations barely four days before the letter. On the demand of an armed forces representative on the panel, the view is that the pay review is taking place for other services, too, and a “government process” has already been initiated into the matter, of which the Defence Secretary is a member.
